The Making of Lexham Bible Dictionary

“Lexham Bible Dictionary is an unbound product—it has no back cover.” This statement drove all discussion and decisions about creating this resource.

Could an enormous pool of content and information—not just the articles but the articles’ status and other project-management details—be maintained in one place? Multiple systems would snuff, or at least greatly hinder, a project of this magnitude. The solution involved some technological “secret sauce” Logos had used almost exclusively for internal work.

Once the platform was ported over, the focus turned to prioritizing articles. LBD deployed much of the data that works under the hood of Logos 4 to generate—and disambiguate—every possible topic before the extensive work of curating began. Rather than one article on Zechariah with multiple entries, there are articles for each Zechariah (more than 30 entries in total). Once the initial scope was established, writers were recruited from within the building and around the globe.

The editorial push began after it was decided that all content would be academic in nature yet readable by most anyone. Editors eliminated theological jargon and focused on crafting succinct, well-structured articles. Relevance dictated organization: essential information before details.

True to its inspiration, Lexham Bible Dictionary has shipped, but it is by no means finished. LBD is the most current Bible dictionary in the world, and it will continue growing to answer more questions, address current issues, and share new discoveries.

Lexham Bible Dictionary will complement any Bible study efforts, and it works even more effectively when used in conjunction with the Faithlife Study Bible, which includes the LBD and over 3,000 links to its articles in the layered notes.